This lecture is about an interpretation of DNA/RNA as visual structures with specific formal properties and relationships. Instead of the existing alphabet representation U, C, A, G and T, all the bases are expressed as five discrete values of the gray-scale: T=white, G= light gray, A= gray, C= dark gray and U= black. Arranged in 3 x 4 matrices DNA strands as linear structures consisting of alphabet letters are converted into 2-D images with distinct visual properties. In this representation we could learn more about DNA/RNA, not only as biological (functional) structures but also as a specific language that can be expressed visually.

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Gregor Mobius is a theoretician of languages that are expressed visually. His early work was in the field of Graph Theory developing an algorithm for visual representation of all planar and regular graphs. As a Fulbright scholar he received master of Science in Visual Studies at MIT with the paper “Discrete Visual Structure – Elements of Visual Grammar” (1984). A few years later, based on his thesis paper, Mobius proposed a specific representation of DNA and RNA that converts linear alphabet DNA structure into a 2D image. This work was presented to the public at the exhibition Gene(sis) that traveled through some West Coast universities: Washington University(2002), University of California, Berkeley (2003) and University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (2004). It is now for the first time presented in a comprehensive way in the book “DNA Semantics”.